Following on from Last week, the second and final part of the Battle of Bunker Hill.
PICTURES 30 – 32
Stark’s front rank opened fire, the Light Infantry were unable to deploy, so pressed on but were met by another hail of lead and eventually retreated leaving 96 casualties on the beach.
PICTURES 33 – 37
Meanwhile the Grenadiers in company columns were climbing a fence some 90 yards from Knowlton when they came under a premature fire and immediately returned it. Eventually the 5th and 52nd caught them up and as they crowded together the attack lost its momentum and the British pulled back out of range to reform.
Howe reformed his troops, rethought his plan and renewed the attack on the rail fence and fleches. The artillery support never materialised from the 6 pdrs as they had the wrong ammunition for the guns for some unknown reason and the attack once again failed with heavy casualties.
PICTURES 38 and 39
Meanwhile on the left flank, Pigott’s force made a feint against the redoubt, whilst the 47th and 1st Marines moved around the South flank.
PICTURES 40 and 41
Prescott ordered his men to hold their fire until the British were within 30 yards. This action supposedly gave rise to the absurd order, ‘Don’t fire ‘till you see the whites of their eyes’.
PICTURES 42 – 44
The defenders unleashed a volley that forced the regulars back out of range to regroup.
PICTURES 45 and 46
The flanking party also withdrew after running into some Massachusetts detachments driven out of Charlestown by the fires, and who had fortified a stone barn and surrounding farmyard.
THE FINAL ASSAULT
PICTURES 47 and 48
The surviving Light Infantry engaged the defenders of the rail fence whilst the 6 pdrs would advance, their right protected by the Light Infantry, and enfilade the breastwork.
PICTURES 49 – 51
At the same time the 5th would attack the fleches and the Grenadiers and 52nd the Northern half of the breastwork.
PICTURES 52 – 56
Pigott’s right (38th and 43rd) attacked the Southern half and the front of the redoubt. The 47th and the 1st Marines would sweep between Charlestown and the redoubt to attack its South and West faces.
PICTURES 57 and 58
The 6 pdrs now had the correct ammunition and the end was nasty, brutish and short, as they swept the breastwork and fleches.
PICTURES 59 and 60
To the South the Marines and 47th swarmed over the ditch and into the redoubt, overwhelming the defenders.
Prescott and the remaining defenders fell back from Breed’s Hill to the larger Bunker Hill and after heavy firing from the Glasgow and Symmetry retreated across Charlestown Neck.
Howe ordered a halt as his force was too depleted even with the arrival of General Clinton and his reinforcements.
British casualties were extremely heavy – 226 dead and over 900 wounded, almost half of those engaged.
The Americans lost between 400 and 600, mostly in the retreat.
The figures are mainly Perry, Foundry and a couple of Front Rank and OG. The flags are by GMB and the buildings are either Hovels, Grand Manner (stone cottage) or scratch built. Trees are Last Valley and the terrain is scratch built by myself.
I had originally done the same sort of thing as above, with Concord and Lexington but I seem to have lost my file with the images, so at some point in the future I will re-take the pictures and submit this historical engagement on the blog.
Two other famous battles of the AWI that I plan on doing in a similar style will be 'Guilford Courthouse' and 'Trenton'. I need to paint more figures to represent the actual units that fought in these engagements, especially the Hessian's and also I need to decide how I will make my snow covered terrain for Trenton. So these projects are a little way off in the future.
